Whatever comes into my head at the moment. Random musings, inane thoughts, creative outlet, parental advice, childish behavior and anything else that piques my interest at any given moment.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Miley Cyrus, Disney Star or Trailer Trash?

Took my daughter to see Miley Cyrus last night. The show was vastly different from the show we saw two years ago. For starters, gone is the wig, the innocent Hannah Montana persona and the kid friendly stage show. We were sitting along the path from the backstage area to the stage so we saw Miley come out with dancers in barely there clothes before the arena did. We saw someone, her boyfriend according to my niece, grab her ass as she ran past, and we saw that she barely flinched as he practically double knuckled her sphincter. The dancers took the stage first, in seductive poses and then the music started.

The music is harder, more edgy and the lyrics are no longer about bubble gum and jeans.

She struts around the stage in shorts so short that she spent an inordinate amount of time pulling the flimsy material down to cover her partially exposed ass.

At one point, she's wearing a see thru shirt and my daughter pointed out the bling dangling from her belly button. She's 16 and sporting stripper wear and stripper accessories. The only thing missing were the clear heels but I'm guessing they'll pop up in the next year or two.

I understand her desire to prove herself as a talent beyond the world of Disney but, to do that, she needs to ditch the show. Sure it's a cash cow and it has established her as a super star but the audience was, for the most part, ten and under girls and watching their idol gyrate and dance in a frighteningly seductive manner cannot be good for them. She bends over and wiggles her ass, slapping it playfully, she slides her hand slowly along her chest, downward. She strips without removing what little clothing she's actually wearing. As a father, it's frightening. As a man, it felt creepy watching her on stage.

She's clearly still a kid. She was reading her lyrics from several teleprompters on the stage (hidden to most but visible to those of us close to the stage) and she had to stifle laughter a couple of times as a result of pranks she and her dancers and band mates were playing on each other. At one point, mid song, she started gesturing to various kids in the audience, interacting with her fans, until she, kidding around, suggested, via a funny face and an elbow, that one kid knock another in the ribs. She then had a look of horror on her face when she realized that her "suggestion" was being acted out. She giggled and mumbled "no, don't do that" mid song. It was the closest she came to being the kid she really is.

My daughter was a bit freaked by some of the theatrics. She loved watching Miley float over the crowd in a wedding dress and when she sang "I Love Rock and Roll" whilst riding a flying motorcycle, my daughter seemed entranced.

During some of the more risque dance numbers, my daughter had a more perplexed look on her face. Gone were the stripper poles that had made the news, replaced by hanging ropes, but the image was that of a group of slutty, stripper wanna be's, singing and dancing around ropes instead of poles.

Disney has been known to dump their stars when they do things that go against the wholesome image their stars are supposed to promote. Miley is such a big star that, I guess, she is given a bit more leeway. The truth is, this girl has a few years left where she can toe this line between teen star and adult star and, at the rate she's going, she's going to chase her young fans away, the older audience won't be interested in yet another trashy girl from the trailer park and she will, likely, wind up as yet another example of how the parents of child stars are so busy raking in money that they forget how fucked up their kids will be as a result of their being thrust into adulthood before they sprout their first pube.

I'm guessing Miley will continue on her path to Dana Plato-dom. She has already sent out pictures of herself doing things most parents would kill their kids for. She will escalate that behavior and, by 18, we'll have seen a nipple or an ass. By 21, if she's not pregnant with her second kid, she will probably be hooked on all kinds of drugs and by 25 she'll doing porn. It's inevitable.